


Lost and Found (The Homecoming Remix)

by Spiralleds



Category: Firefly
Genre: Gen, Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-30
Updated: 2015-06-30
Packaged: 2018-04-06 22:21:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4238721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spiralleds/pseuds/Spiralleds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When you can't find home, home finds you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lost and Found (The Homecoming Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [touchedglitter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/touchedglitter/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Homecoming](https://archiveofourown.org/works/910126) by [Kiba Rika (touchedglitter)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/touchedglitter/pseuds/Kiba%20Rika). 
  * Inspired by [Homecoming](https://archiveofourown.org/works/910126) by [Kiba Rika (touchedglitter)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/touchedglitter/pseuds/Kiba%20Rika). 
  * In response to a prompt by [touchedglitter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/touchedglitter/pseuds/touchedglitter) in the [remixmadness2015](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/remixmadness2015) collection. 



River is on the floor, ear pressed to it when Simon returns to their room.

Immediately he's beside her, "River! Are you alright?"

"Residual weakness from the cryo," she says, sitting up. Which is true. But then when she'd been on the floor, she "heard the ship. Stayed to make friends."

Simon gives her one of his patented worried looks. Which makes her think she said more out loud than she'd intended.

"We don’t know anything about these people, mei mei. Other than they are bandits, ruffians, and a possibly insurrectionists. I'm not sure we should be making friends with them."

"Serenity says they're true." She means to reassure him, but Simon's so sad. She hates his sad more than the impersonal thoughts of the Academy's so-called scientists. So she pulls every bit of her will together. "It'll keep it interesting, if they're really bandits and Browncoats. It's like a cross-culture study."

He laughs. "Leave it to you to find the educational opportunity."

* * *

Simon remembered the last time they talked about things being interesting – while in transport to the Academy. River had nearly levitated out of her seat with excitement. Looking forward to being with others whose brains worked like hers did.

And now he was forced to consider exactly how her brain still worked. Maybe it wasn't as bad as he feared. Maybe anthropomorphizing the ship – boat as the Captain called it – was just a reasonable and temporary coping mechanism.

It was better than his alternative theory.

* * *

She bolts awake, clapping her hand over her mouth, afraid that she will be heard. Afraid that They will hear her. But it's not the Academy, it's the room she shares with Simon. It's Serenity. She listens, hoping she's not waken his doctor self.

She hasn't, but her heart still pounds, so she slips out of bed, out of their room. She's prowled all of Serenity, finding spots – cat-small spaces - even Kaylee and the Captain don't quite know about.

Tonight she goes to the dining area with its windows. Pressing her cheek to the glass, she feels the cold. Not the absolute cold of space, but a cold that tells truth, not the fiction of being planet side while deep in the black. Slowly breathing out, she watches the condensation form, then ebb. Nothing like the core planet ships with their specially treated glass, a fiction of perfection. Yet the fingerprints of the Alliance are everywhere.

Nearly everywhere. Not here. The Captain won't let them. Follows his intuition. Powered by his anger. And she's not alone, having nightmares. She sets out tea and slips away.

* * *

This was not the epitaph he'd anticipated. Not even after breaking River free.

Where had things gone so wrong? Right about the time they'd got the last cow out of the cargo bay. It was then he'd lowered his guard. River was safe. Their place on the ship was safe. Even the cows were safe.

And now they were tied to a stake. About to be burned to death. What kind of backward, superstitious, oxygen deprived idiots burned people at the stake?

Strangely, it wasn't his life that flashed before his eyes, but River's. Or at least the potential of what River could have had, could have been. Mathematics, literature, arts, astronomy... so may possibilities. Simon could hear his sister's voice, telling the family just how many light years away their familiar stars were. He looked up to them now, wondering if any were already dead, echoes of what once was.

* * *

River looks up too and sees the night sky. The stars are sentries. No, watchers. No, guides. Ones that keep Serenity safe, whispering directions.

_Second star to the right, and straight on 'til morning._ Which River had read that earth-that-was book with its never-land place? Just like Serenity, taking the lost home. And home was coming.


End file.
